House Majority Leader Amy Stephens has taken a lot of heat this year over co-sponsoring Senate Bill 200, which set up Colorado’s health insurance exchange, a key step toward compliance with the national health care reform law.

Tea Party activists are still raging about “Amycare” for the Monument Republican’s sponsorship of the measure as surrender to “Obamacare” and “socialized medicine.” There has been talk for months of potential primary challenges to Stephens next year.

“This site is dedicated to exposing Representatives (sic) Stephens for what she is – a Progressive in Conservative clothing,” the site’s anonymous author writes. “My objective is to see that she is never elected to another position in Colorado.

WASHINGTON — Republican Rep. Mike Coffman of Aurora would not vote to raise the debt ceiling if more revenues were coming in through tax reform — even if the overall tax rate was lower for virtually all Americans.

The pendantic “who’s on first” debate among the GOP here has been definining the exact meaning of a tax increase. If the overall tax code was lowered for everyone, but more taxes were coming in because, as part of tax code simplification, there were fewer tax write-offs, is that a net tax increase?

A successful 1859 bill would have created the state of Colorado out of the counties of California south of Big Sur, but before Congress could give its approval the Civil War broke out.

“A different Colorado, situated somewhat further inland, achieved statehood in 1876,” according to the story.

But meanwhile, it isn’t raining in southern Colorado. Farmers in southern Colorado are bracing for a diminished winter-wheat harvest this month because of drought conditions as bad as they were in 2002, according to a story in the Denver Post.

U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard stops to give an autograph to a supporter at Mitt Romney's headquarters in Iowa in 2008.

It’s popular to bash lobbyists these days, especially after the Abramoff scandal, but former U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard says Washington would be worse off without them.

“From my experience, if you took the lobbyists out of Washington you’d be in trouble,” he said Thursday. “The only people that would be talking to you would be the bureaucracy. Anybody in here comfortable hearing from just the bureaucracy?”

Allard, a Loveland Republican who served in Washington for 18 years before retiring after 2008, talked to the Capitol Club in downtown Denver about a range of subjects, particularly the deficit and the fight in Washington to raise the debt ceiling.

Don Ytterberg, vice chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, asked Allard to comment on the role of lobbyists in sustaining entitlements.

Allard noted lobbyists represent a variety of interests, from small business to rural electrics to county commissions and city councils and are the voice of the people back home. He agreed there have been abuses, but said the answer isn’t to “run lobbyists out of Washington.”

A PARKING TICKET? @!$%! The city of Denver has decided to alter the signage on parking meters downtown to make it more clear that drivers have to pay for overnight parking after a CBS4 investigation.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH: Colorado’s rates of marijuana and cocaine use, alcohol consumption, and binge drinking are far higher than the national average and among the highest states in the nation, according to a federal survey. The Denver Post .

SPEAKING OF EXCESS: El Paso County politicians regularly say they want to reduce federal spending, but county takes in more federal money than just about any other place in Colorado — and more than twice as much as in 2000 when inflation is accounted for. The Colorado Springs Gazette.

DID NOT, DID TOO: Speaker Frank McNulty and House Minority Leader Sal Pace spar over a property-tax break for senior citizens. The Pueblo Chieftain.

AND ON TO ANOTHER MAYORAL RACE: Conservative analyst Jessica Corry takes at look at Aurora’s mayoral election in November in the Huffington Post.

MAP WARS FALLOUT CONTINUES: Elsewhere in Aurora, Democrats continue to protest how their legislative districts were redrawn. Rep. Rhonda Fields said if she crosses the street “I could be out of my own district.” Aurora Sentinel.

AND A NEW FACE IN THE LEGISLATURE: Weld County Democrats picked Dave Young, a former educator, to fill the remaining term of former Rep. Jim Riesberg, who resigned to become the state’s insurance commissioner. The Greeley Tribune.

CHA-CHING: Newly appointed gaming regulators will review a loophole in the state’s casino-licensing regulation that operators are using to trim their tax bills. The Denver Post.

BENNET’S A GANG MEMBER: Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet and Republican Sen. Mike Johanns of Nebraska joined two Gang of Six meetings toiling to broker a deficit-reduction deal in the final days before the federal government runs out of money. The Denver Post.

REASON TO DRIVE: RTD’s local routes don’t run through many of the Longmont neighborhoods whose residents might otherwise consider using a bus , several people complained during a city-sponsored gathering of transit users on Thursday. Longmont Times-Call.

SPEAKING OF RTD: Four of Denver’s light rail stations are shutting down for three weeks, effective at midnight. 9News .

Democrats are out with their own Spanish-language ad, which praises President Obama and accuses Republicans of wanting to sacrifice Medicare to pay for tax cuts for the super wealthy.

In addition to Denver, the ads will run in the following media markets: Reno, Las Vegas, Tampa, Orlando, Miami, Albuquerque, and Washington D.C., according to the Democratic National Committee.

“What the country needs is the continued leadership of President Obama, who is focused like a laser on creating jobs and moving our country forward,” DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in a statement.

The ads are aimed at countering Spanish commercials from American Crossroads GPS, an arm of a conservative third party organization connected to Karl Rove.

Lynn Bartels thinks politics is like sports but without the big salaries and protective cups. The Washington Post's "The Fix" blog has named her one of Colorado's best political reporters and tweeters.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.